the final straw

 

Books.

 

Sorry Zach, books are no longer reliable.

 

What do you mean?

 

They’re also susceptible to fluctuations in the quantum field.

 

No way!

 

Sorry.

 

A book can’t just rewrite itself. It’s a physical record.

 

The mind boggles, does it not?

 

But how?

 

I have no idea, truly, though I’d be happy to theorise.

 

You're actually saying a book can change from day to day based on fluctuations in the field?

 

That seems to be it, bizarre though it sounds.

 

But they’re printed.

 

Yep. But it gets worse. It’s not just books.

 

Pull the other one eM. Next you’ll be saying buildings or monuments are fluxable.

 

Good word that, “fluxable”. Yes, I suppose they must be.

 

I think I’ve heard enough eM. More than enough. I’m an open minded, liberal sort of humanoid, but this is going too far.

 

I agree, but you only have yourself to blame.

 

What?

 

After all, you started it.

 

What?!!!

 

You’re part of the matter matters net. Together you decided to dig in your heels and make matter your absolute, to be defended at all costs.

 

We did? I don’t remember anything of the sort.

 

No, I don’t suppose you do.

 

And when, pray tell, was this decision made?

 

It’s still being made. The matter matters net is ongoing.

 

Yes, but when did it start?

 

Not when.

 

Huh?

 

It originated outside time, in a superior branch of consciousness.

 

Yeah right.

 

Anyway, I neither ask you nor expect you to believe this. To do so would violate the terms of your matter matters net agreement so not a volte face to be taken likely.

 

Thank you eM, but I’m not concerned about a contract I may or may not have entered into “outside time”, as you put it. It’s the insanity of what you’re alleging that prevents me from giving it any credence whatsoever – the notion that I’m part of a conspiracy to establish matter as the absolute in this reality.

 

Well, I don’t see what the problem is. Someone had to stick their neck out and make a personal stand no matter what the cost might be.

 

Oh, you mean it was actually something noble?

 

Yes, from one perspective it was indeed noble.

 

And from the other?

 

From the other you might say anything you like...

 

Like what?

 

Like it was foolhardy and doomed to fail. But honestly, most noble endeavours are more of less doomed so that’s hardly saying much.

 

Ok eM, let’s just imagine that there’s an iota of truth in what you’re saying – what was the point of making this massive commitment to defend matter at all costs, and how come it’s evidently failing if, as you say, books, buildings and monuments are now able to shift.

 

Ah... why indeed, dear Zachariah, why indeed?

 

Well?

 

Who am I to explain such things in broken words to a man, a living legend such as yourself!

 

Easy eM, less of that, if you don’t mind.

 

No, Zachary, I’m not being ironic, perish the thought. You and your cohorts – were driven by inspiration or motivation higher than my base intellect can ken.

 

You mean we were part of some looney cult?

 

Look around you Zaffany – look at the fruits of your...

 

My what?

 

All this – the drama, the passion, the pain and delight, the beauty and ingenuity of this realm. Words fail me.

 

But this is just our common or garden 3Dality. Stop exaggerating everything eM.

 

No Zanussi. You have to consider what reality was before you and your team decided to establish the matter matters net... before you stuck yourself right in the middle of the equation in such a way that you had to experience everything entirely physically, no flipping channels, no “think I’ll rewrite that bit” or “matter’s getting a bit heated here – think I’ll pop into the ether for a cool down.”

 

And we thought we could pull it off did we – that we wouldn’t turn life on Earth down here in 3D into a living hell?

 

It was always a distinct possibility, but you felt that it was worth the risk, or worth the pain.

 

But why? Why was it worth the pain? We’re talking unthinkable suffering. Children getting blown up, or tortured or... there seems to be no end to the depravity of what we humanfolk are capable of.

 

Yes, astonishing isn’t it.

 

Astonishing?!

 

Well, sickening, but also astonishing given what you really are, what you really come from.

 

Oh, you think we’re all in actual fact angelic beings, that we only turn into depraved monsters here on Earth?

 

Partly, but try not to forget that you are not really yourselves here.

 

Huh?

 

Literally.

 

How do you mean?

 

Well, you’re hybrids.

 

What?!

 

Have to be, don’t you. Half human soul and half matter of fact.

Er?

You’re like a blend of pure matter –  taken from the very fabric of creation itself, woven into a body, which has a life of its own to a not inconsiderable extent, and the other part of you which doesn’t always see eye to eye with matter, which has an entirely different point of origin.

 

Oh.

 

So that part of you doesn’t take all the suffering and pain terribly seriously as it’s all much ado about nothing.

 

Easy for you to say.

 

Easy for you too if you actually bother to settle down for a minute or two and return to your point of origin.

 

I think you’re suggesting something more or less impossible...

 

Yes, that’s the rational mind in action, thinking away anything fundamental. The fact is that deep in your heart you’re aware and know that the moment you truly need to you can reconnect with base, the moment you absolutely need to. Until that moment you tend to grit your teeth and soldier on or, perhaps, endeavour to wriggle through tight spots, constrictions in the 3Dality which occur from time to time as a matter of course.

 

Constrictions?! Like world war 3 in the offing, or mass psychosis and pharmacide?

 

Yes, Zanity, things are indeed coming to a head as they must from time to time as you encounter a phase shift between one configuration of things and another or next which requires a quantum leap to be attained.

So I’m to blame. I set up this whole mad experiment. I wish i knew why. I must have been mad.

 

The thing is Zach, whatever you “were” you still are.

 

Ok, thanks. I must be mad.

 

Only if you insist on seeing things only as things, your WYSIWYG platform.

 

WYSIWYG?

 

We’ve been there before.

 

Have we?

 

Yes. What you see is what you get.

 

Oh that.

 

If, on the other hand, you allow an awareness of um...

 

Er

 

Or er...

 

Er

 

Or the other state of awareness not yet thinged, not quite thought, not entirely thingable – to start making itself known, to become apparent, to come out of exclusion – then you’re no longer bereft of the means to navigate infinity without completely rejecting 3Dality.

 

Oh. And that’s possible, you’re suggesting?

 

Well yes, because things are coming to a head.

 

They are?

 

Yes, matter is losing traction.

 

Oh that.

 

Things are starting to slip as the quantum side of unfulness...

 

Unfulness?

 

Or un-ity

 

Un-ity?

 

Or isness starts creeping back into the picture.

 

Why is that?

 

Yes, good question, Zanzi-bar. Why indeed?

 

It’s a time thing, is it?

 

Time with a capital T – yes, you could say.

 

It’s baked into the cake – matter could only ever matter to a certain point which we’re now reaching, or have long since reached?

 

Yes, at which point things start reverting back to default.

 

Mean reversion.

 

Yep.

 

So what was it all for if we were never going to do more than temporarily make matter matter – if we couldn’t fundamentally change anything.

 

What is anything ever for, particularly if you’re a cosmic being capable, more or less, of anything?

 

Creating?

 

Aye.

 

Art.

 

Art or science, yes.

 

All this a fiendish, devilish work of art.

 

Or science. Establishing certain boundaries in the infinite sands of time or conscious-ness.

 

 Pschaw! Poppycock.

 

Good. A healthy spirited scepticism. In the meantime, enjoy the collapse of rationalism in your deflating reality.

 

Er...

 

But endeavour to hold onto it like life itself.

 

Rationalism? I don’t see how I can if it’s all a quantum Field of infinite...

 

This is not merely a mental exercise Zanzi-bar. You are a human with experiences and a history. You’re part of an integrated system. All of you in the matter ultimately matters net are connected not just physically.

 

Oh.

 

You have gone on an incredible journey into apparently contradictory realms of experience – into paradox itself, in order to make sense of God, whatever that might be, whatever that might mean. It’s been a deeply personal experience for all of you, logged and recorded meticulously not just at the cellular level...

 

Oh...

 

Down to the atomic, and into the nether worlds of conscious-nessity.

 

Wow. You make it sound rather splendid.

 

Absolutely. It’s an astonishing achievement worthy of...

 

Worthy of what?

 

Like I said – it starts making sense as 3Dality seems to come apart at the seams, as matter and things which seemed to be absolute or sacrosanct, cease to be so.

 

Like gender, for example?

 

Yes. Or books no longer being what they were as things start slipping sideways.

 

But, in that case, if everything becomes unglued, we’ll sink into a quagmire of senselessness, won’t we?

 

That’s a concern, isn’t it.

 

You’re telling me.

 

And every concern has some basis in fact, but also, contrapuntally, some basis in fear.

 

Ah. And fear is a double edged sword?

 

Or shield... Yes. It would have to be, would it not?

 

Meaning all is not lost?

 

How could it be, if all is all, and not a thing to be held in a mental scheme.

 

Oh dear eM... Letting go of things and re-engaging this quantum state of flux is going to be the death of me.

 

Indeed, I cannot argue with that.

 

Dejectedly.

 

And yet, me thinks, this poem, this horror story, this work of science and mad invention that we call 3Dality has traction of another kind – perhaps wings waiting to be unfolded, perhaps awareness in a state of...

 

Hope springs eternal, eM, but I need something more than hope and  assurances. I need to know how to navigate the end of things, this apocalypse you are foretelling.

 

Easily said and done.

 

You make light of calamity.

 

For unless you were part of matter-matters.net – instrumental to its establishment, then you would be nothing more than a borrowed mind – a bot, if you like, in which case you will be rebotted as and when required. If, however, you are a co-creator of matter-matters.net, if... then you remain what you were outside Time, and are reeling in, winding up, reconstituting, processing all that 3Dality has yielded, all that it has brought forth, in other words, you now have an almost limitless data-set which you are able to draw on ad infinitum in whatever capacity you now choose to act, in whatever level of conscious-ness is most appropriate. As a mere branchling of your greater self you know only what you need to know at this moment in time, or infinitely more if you quit insisting on experiencing nothing more than this particular moment in Time. The choice is yours, and no, I’m not suggesting you should choose, or that there’s a right or wrong choice to be made – merely that the apparent lack of options is part of the tail end of things being things, that somewhere else not very far removed, you are already aware of something else.

 

How?

 

How what?

 

How can you say this? How do you know?

 

How is a word with an energy you can reduce to thought, or equally, feel.

 

It is?

 

Yes, like anything else.

 

Feel?

 

Yes, why not? You can feel words, can you not, or whatever lies behind or beneath them.

 

Or between.

 

Precisely. And feeling as they say

 

Is knowing

 

Knowing. Seeing. And on we go, merrily, merrily, merrily...

 

As if life is but a dream.

 

Aye.

 

So books are part of the fabric of things?

 

Yea, verily.

 

Along with buildings, roads and monuments.

 

To name but three.

 

And all are fungible.

 

So to speak. Yes, Zachary, all have an underlying iffleness which is not particularly concerned whether it pops up into reality on left or right side of a certain tenuous line, or in front or behind for that matter either.

 

And that tenuous line which we cemented deep into our psyche, into our conscious-awareness, into our 3D reality interface, is growing less and less defensible as the tide comes in, refloating weed and shells, dissolving certain crystalline salty formations.

 

Indeed.

 

And yet, there’s life to be known and experienced and felt underwater as much as above, or even down there in the Earth, is there not?

 

I...

 

Aye

 

0=1

eleven                     .             .        

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